


Just a Dream

by hedgehoggery



Category: Naruto
Genre: During the War, F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 08:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14870474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedgehoggery/pseuds/hedgehoggery
Summary: Shikamaru gasped at his own realization. Madara must have succeeded - everyone had been trapped in the Uchiha’s genjutsu. Why it had released them now was a mystery - Shikamaru could only assume that somehow Madara had been defeated.So if all that was a dream, then I’m not really married to…“Temari.”





	Just a Dream

The smell of cigarette smoke hung in the air as Shikamaru stared absently at the Shogi board. His eyes remained fixed on the pieces resting atop the board but he no longer saw them; now, he was considering every possible move and the implications of each one.

He finally sighed and moved a piece, the familiar  _click_ of wood on wood jolting his mind fully back to the present. His Shogi partner stroked his beard and stared intently at the board before falling into the same glazed-over expression Shikamaru himself wore when strategizing.

“Dinner’s ready!”

Shikamaru jumped at the sudden noise. He looked across the board at Asuma who was smirking and taking a long drag on his cigarette.

“Women always feel the need to shout,” Shikamaru sighed. “Especially my woman.” Asuma chuckled.

“I’m surprised I haven’t heard either of mine in a while,” he said. As if on cue, a baby started crying from within the house. Shikamaru chuckled as Asuma rolled his eyes. “And there’s one of them now.”

Shikamaru and Asuma stood up and walked down the corridor to the kitchen to find Temari moving dishes of food to the table and Kurenai rocking a crying Mirai gently on her hip. Without a word Asuma took the crying baby from his wife and rocked her back and forth, gently cooing at her. It worked - within seconds Mirai had stopped crying. Shikamaru chuckled to himself. It had been almost a year and he still hadn’t adjusted to seeing his strong, burly sensei cooing at a baby.

“I’ll go put her down,” Asuma said to no one in particular as he walked out of the room. Shikamaru sat down by the table as Temari laid out the last of the dishes.

“Thanks for having us for dinner,” Kurenai said, sitting by the table.

“It’s no trouble at all,” Temari said. “It’s much easier to cook when Shikamaru is distracted with a game of Shogi.” Shikamaru scoffed.

“Eh, then I’ll be expecting this to actually taste good for once,” he retorted. Temari shot him a sideways glance - she knew as well as he did that her cooking was always fine. Asuma returned without Mirai and sat at the empty spot at the table, and the four of them began to eat.

__

Shikamaru walked up behind Temari as she washed a dish, snaking his arms around her waist and gently kissing her neck. Their guests had finally left and Shikamaru couldn’t help but enjoy the stillness left in the house. He felt Temari stiffen slightly in response to his touch.

“Thank you for cooking for everyone,” he said. She huffed in reply. Shikamaru sighed deeply and rolled his eyes, dropping his arms to his side. “What’s with you?”

“What’s with me?” Temari spat, not turning around. “You know good and well what’s with me.” Shikamaru sighed, softer this time, and wrapped his arms back around her waist.

“Come on, you know I was joking,” he said. She didn’t reply. “You know I love all your cooking. Almost as much as I love you.” He saw the corners of her mouth turn up slightly in a poorly-masked grin and spun her around to face him. He bent down and kissed her lips - he had kissed them a hundred thousand times before, but they still felt as electrifying as the first time. He pulled away from the kiss to look at the smirk on her face. Before he could even think to ask why she was smirking, she flicked her fingers at him, still wet from washing dishes, and sent droplets of water flying onto his face.

“Woman!” he exclaimed, stepping back in surprise as he heard her laugh. “You’re going to pay for that!” A devilish smile danced across her face.

“Really,” she said mischievously. “And just how are you planning on making me pay?” Shikamaru raised one eyebrow.

“Come to bed and I’ll show you.”

___

A soft breeze washed across Shikamaru’s forehead. He stirred slightly in his sleep, not opening his eyes. The breeze grew more insistent: it touched his eyes, his nose, his neck. He was suddenly overcome with the feeling of falling and opened his eyes to find a strange bark enveloping him. He panicked and tried to swat it away only to quickly realize the bark was releasing him from its hold. He landed on the ground with a soft  _thunk_ and tried to regain his wits.

_What the hell is happening._

He looked around. Dozens - no, hundreds - of similar bark-based restraints were releasing their prisoners all over the battlefield. Battlefield? The word had entered Shikamaru’s head of its own volition but suddenly now seemed unexpected. Why was there a battlefield?

Memories slowly crept their way back into Shikamaru’s consciousness - the Allied Shinobi Forces, Madara, his father, the war. War, yes - they were at war.

_So last night with Asuma and Kurenai was a dream._

Of course it was a dream - he suddenly remembered his sensei was long since dead. Twice dead, in fact - he had just recently defeated his reanimated corpse.

But why had he been wrapped in a cocoon on the battlefield?

_Infinite Tsukuyomi._

Shikamaru gasped at his own realization. Madara must have succeeded - everyone had been trapped in the Uchiha’s genjutsu. Why it had released them now was a mystery - Shikamaru could only assume that somehow Madara had been defeated.

_So if all that was a dream, then I’m not really married to…_

“Temari.”

The word escaped his lips as a whisper. He glanced around the field - most of the people who were being released from their wooden prisons were looking around, dazed, but a few lay still and Shikamaru couldn’t tell if they were alive or dead.

“Temari? Temari!” He shouted louder with each iteration of her name as if somehow screaming could summon her to him. He tore wildly at the bark of the cocoon next to him, illogically expecting to find Temari inside.

“Choji!” he shouted as he uncovered his friend’s face. Choji coughed and opened his eyes.

“Wha…?”

“There’s no time to explain, I’ll tell you everything later,” Shikamaru said, gently slapping his friend on the face to jolt him back to reality. “Help the others around here. I’m going to go find… I’m going to find out what’s happening on the rest of the field.” Choji looked around, distraught. “Choji! Pay attention! Help everyone around here!”

“Right, okay Shikamaru,” he said with much uncertainty. Shikamaru decided it was good enough and ran off towards the main part of the tree. He watched as dozens of bodies were released from their prisons and hoped wildly that one of them would be Temari.

_Shikamaru, think! You’re acting ridiculous._

He stopped running and tried to clear his mind enough to act in some sort of logical fashion but his brain seemed incapable of producing anything other than a high pitched screaming noise. He spun in a circle, overwhelmed by the amount of cocoons he would have to check to find Temari. The tree’s branch radius was at least a mile wide, and it appeared to Shikamaru that the entire Allied Shinobi Forces had been swallowed up by the mysterious bark cocoons.

Shikamaru felt a panic creeping up in his mind as he tried to consider how we would find anyone in this mess. He dropped down to his knee and let his fingertips rest gently together, taking a deep breath to clear his mind.

_Where would she be?_

Temari must have been on this battlefield - the entire Allied Shinobi Forces had shown up to fight the Ten-Tails. In fact, Shikamaru realized he hadn’t seem Temari since that fight, and he had no clue whether she had survived…

_No. Don’t think about that now._

He quelched the panic that threatened to take over again. Temari had been with the wind users - if he could find where they were, she’d likely be there. He opened his eyes and stood up, spinning around with more purpose this time.

_Why am I even trying to find her? It was a dream. We’re not really married._

He knew the answer to his own question before he even thought it. He’d tried to hide it and play it off with jokes and sarcasm, but the fact of the matter was he was in love with Temari. She knew, of course. Shikamaru had told himself that having a girlfriend was too much work and would be too troublesome for him, but it was now impossible to deny that his feelings for Temari were proving to be troublesome whether she was his girlfriend or not.

His eyes rested on a group of shinobi that Shikamaru vaguely recalled were wind users. Without hesitation he sprinted over and began tearing away at the bark restraints. He uncovered some familiar faces and many unfamiliar ones - he couldn’t tell if they were all alive or not, he couldn’t tell if some were dead or just close to it - but he let them figure it out for themselves as he continued ahead.

_Maybe she wasn’t with the wind users._

Hope started to fade as he kept searching. The cocoons were dropping people left and right but much too slowly for Shikamaru. He tore away at the bark of another one to reveal familiar blonde locks. He felt the air rush from his lungs as he uncovered her face.

“Temari!” Her eyes were closed - Shikamaru wasn’t sure she was even alive. “Temari? TEMARI!” He heard his voice crack in a very unmasculine way that would normally have annoyed him, but he was too distraught to care. He slapped her face to wake her up. Her eyes fluttered open. Shikamaru let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Shikamaru?” she asked, her voice dazed.

“Temari, are you okay?” he asked, trying to regain some level of composure now that he had confirmed she was alive.

“I… what happened?” she asked. She looked around the battlefield in shock. “Did… did I get caught in a genjutsu?”

For the millionth time, Shikamaru was reminded just why he was so enamored with Temari. She was smarter than most anyone he knew, and he was always thankful for not having to spend time explaining things to her.

“Yeah, we all were,” he said.

“So if that was a dream…” she started. “Then why are you here?” He saw her cheeks flush a little as she realized the implication of her words. Shikamaru couldn’t help a slight smirk.

“I, uh… was checking on everyone,” he lied. She nodded gravely.

“Don’t lie to me, Nara,” she said. Shikamaru rolled his eyes. Of course she would see through his deception immediately.

“You’re always such a nag,” he said, sighing. Temari smiled and Shikamaru suddenly forgot that he was on a battlefield sitting among dozens of corpses in the middle of a war. He forgot that he had spent the last several years building up a persona of detachment and disinterest in order to keep Temari at arm’s length. He forgot that he was terrified of his feelings for her and of being rejected. He forgot all of that as he leaned down and kissed her. Unlike his dream, this wasn’t their hundredth or thousandth kiss - but it didn’t feel like the first either. It just felt right.

“Is this how you’re checking on everyone?” she said wryly as he pulled away. He scoffed.

“Shut up, woman,” he said. She smirked and grabbed the collar of his shirt to pull him down towards her face.

“For once, I won’t argue with you,” she said, and pulled him into another kiss.


End file.
